The Theologian's Table

     When my son was around 3 years old one of his favorite movies was Lady and the Tramp 2. In this movie, the son of the the title dogs was a rambunctious little guy and he would get into all sorts of trouble. At one point in the film the puppy exclaimed, "Are there are is rules, rules, rules" and then he ran away from home. Funnily enough my son parroted the line at me when he got in trouble one day, needless to say I didn't let him watch the movie as much after that. The Situation in Leviticus Imagine yourself among a massive expanse of people, so massive that the ruler of the foreign land you just left feared your people's number so much that he had all of the youngest offspring killed. Now your nation is traveling the desert towards a land that was promised to you by God. The logistics of this whole exodus are mind-numbingly incomprehensible to you and people are getting sick, people are getting tired, people are getting lawless. To top it off, you...

God is Love The book of John, the most theological of all four gospels. Out of this book we get the most famous Bible verse of all time. You see it painted on the faces or giant stomachs of football fans, you see it tattooed on the bodies of reformed tough guys, or you hear it quoted by misleading politicians clamoring for the Christian vote, it's John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." It is this love that is the theme of John and it is poured out in every chapter. It is this love that gives the Christus Victor view of the atonement major ground to stand on. That the death and resurrection of Jesus was not a business transaction between two parties, but a selfless, covenantal fulfilling of God's promise to redeem us. This love, that was in the beginning with God and was God, became flesh, yet still fully God, wrapped in humility to reconcile us back to the Father. Oth...

Jesus, the Perfect Human As I mentioned in my previous entries, each gospel has a unique perspective on the mission of Christ. Luke's target audience were the Greeks and his portrayal of Jesus was to show that he was the perfect human, someone we should all aspire to be like. The reason for this was because the Greeks of Luke's day spent a lot of time debating on what the perfect human should be like, so through out the text Luke gives examples of why Jesus is this ultimate person. Luke the Physician Luke was a doctor and a historian and this is reflected in his style of writing. He was very concerned with not only depicting accurately the ministry of Jesus, but also Jesus' past. He tells of how an angel came to John the Baptist's mother(John is Jesus' cousin) and told her that her child would prepare the way for the Messiah and tells what happened between that event and his birth. He next covers the events of what lead up to Jesus' birth, but instead ...

     So, I read through and studied the Gospel of Mark for the first time and I'd like to clarify something. In my entry about Matthew in regards as to the themes of what each book covered I was a little mistaken on the theme of Mark of Jesus being a teacher. While that's not far off It conveys more of a sense of Jesus in action through miracles to display His divinity. Mark has a faster pace than the rest of the gospels and is the shortest of the four. His target audience were Roman Christians and they, who unlike Matthews audience, used a more common language. Another thing I learned is that Mark was not one of the 12 original disciples, but rather a possible friend of Jesus(Mark 14:51), he also joined the apostle Paul on his first missionary trip. The Gospel of Mark is pretty great and one of the reasons, as I mentioned above, is because of the target audience. Not to downplay their education level, the text is written how a popular novel would read, but Mark fulf...

    What is faith? What is this concept that the media mostly gets wrong, or Christians sometimes get confused or at least confused? Heck, even some pastors get it wrong. Is there a clear definition for it in the Christian life?      Recently, I woke up in the morning, and the first thing that popped into my head was The Goonies. It wasn't a slow process but a thought that sprung me awake like a lightning bolt to my consciousness: THE GOONIES! It occurred to me that Christians could probably learn a thing, or seven, from the classic 80's flick, especially about faith. So, I will relate this film to our walk in faith and make some arguments about what faith really is and means. Once again, like in my recent posts, I ask you to keep an open mind and open heart to what is going to be said in this entry. The Goonies? Da fudge is that?      Hopefully, everyone has seen or at least heard of the Goonies, but in case you've been living under a ro...

http://mbsdailydrawing.blogspot.com/       As some of you may know I decided about a year ago that I  wanted to go to school so I could become a pastor. One of the requirements is to have read the Bible completely at least once. Admittedly I have not done that, so over the past year I have skipped around to different books in the Bible and read them. For my 31st birthday my wife got me a life applications study Bible and with it I decided to study the New Testament books in order. I have since devoured the book of Matthew and would like to share a taste of what I have learned. I'd like to ask you to please keep an open mind and an open heart to what I have to say, thank you. Common Misconceptions      When some people think of the four Gospels they are confused on why there needs to be 4 different books about the same events. In reality they portray Jesus using different themes such as Matthew trying to prove that Jesus is King/Messiah to th...